Ganga-roo

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A plethora of everything creates a disparity in anything. A perfect misuse of the resources in plenty is what India today stands for. The nation is rich in anything but runs low in mortitude.

In the recent news, there has been a lot of hue and cry about the racist attack on Indian students in Australia. The attacks were just a show off in Australia while people all over the globe have the same feeling about the desi flocks. The latent feelings do not show up when you are being spoon fed on a bed of feathers, but explode out spitting balls of fire when in a recession. Well, I do not justify the attacks but it is the usual “think before you act” attitude.
The normal outlook of, at least the United States of America, how most people outside USA and most immigrants who have a cakewalk to the top of the destiny see it is entirely different from what is in here really. Let’s call this normal outsider or the destiny reaching cakewalking immigrant as Ms.Wasapna. The best description of the view from the closed eyes of Waspna:
Dreamland where wishes come true, a land of plenty and a slide-up to instant millions: In short an Utopia.
Reality is veiled behind the need of the hour.
Ms. Waspna must have had heard about a couple of instances about remote attacks and road robbery by some K**** hoodlums. The entire focus is on the K****, that’s all.
What Waspna does not or may be does not want to see is:
Swarms of homeless people, Jobless Joes, Caucasian miscreants and many Unusual Sams.
In my three years at Akron, deemed by many as the best place to live in because of the right mix of everything in here( I did not feel this way at first, but now my feeling is the same), I have had a few instances when I met some Joes and Sams. The conversation was always interesting but the same. A question from the other end and an one worded answer from me followed by anything and everything except physical assaults from the other end including some racial taunts commanding me to get back to from where I came. Such conversations were always with some Caucasian male.
Well, every country has its own problem and the perspective and the seriousness of each change in time and dimension. It took me a while to understand the American style of education and so it took me longer to understand the problems and shortcomings of the societies and people living here in. Even if we do not understand the problems of the place we are in, the basic reasoning behind all these racial clashes involving the Indians is the attitude. All Indians, though not in outlook or at least not in their words are not egoistic but that is something that runs very much within. To be proud of our culture, nation and its past does not necessarily mean devaluing the others. To be honest, the attitude we carry sucks.
In my very recent regular trips to the Shiva-Vishnu temple in Cleveland for the inclusion of feel good factor in life, I noticed that the temple priests offer pujas on every Sunday morning. Though I was there every Sunday, I did not know this until recently. The turnout is usually good but the highlight is the words of the priest, “ …. God has blessed our children that they are shining with excellence even in this country………..” . Well, any American or Australian could very well term this as a racial rhetoric (though it sounds more catholic to me).
When the protogonists propose that everything good in this world originated in India, I have a gut which feels that racism is pretty much indigenous. The Sardars are subject of national joke while a Madrasi is the butt of a north Indian joke and a madrasi mocks the north Indian. The same is the case with a Gujarati and Maharashtrian. They both join to mock Bahadurs and others. A madrasi calls a telugu guy golti and in turn gets back a sambhar. Every state mocks the other. Every individual mocks the other.
From the understanding of Racism, my definition is that, “Any individual could be hurt but when a catch word that denotes a group of such similar individuals is inserted in the same taunt then that is racism and it cannot be tolerated”.
Friedrich Otto Hertz quotes, “At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when he brought some people into being”.
Ha ha ha……very intelligent choice of words by Otto.
Well, there is one but huge difference between the racism in India and the rest of the world. There has not been any genocide in the name of races in India except for a few casualties. The Jews, the African Americans, the American Indians and the roma gypsies.
The roma gypsies need a mention here. I do not know how many of you are familiar with the gypsies. They are the most suppressed people in the non-bibilical (!)History of mankind. There were more gypsies killed than the Jews by the Nazis. The Roma are believed to be a tribe that wandered off from India due to various reasons, one being the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni. The Romas settled in various parts of Europe and Africa. They were continuously persecuted throughout their history, even the land of immigrants, USA denied their entry. There have been lots of people championing the cause of Jews but none for the Roms. What is amazing is the tradition that they follow, even the most intricate trivial ones are similar to some being followed even today at some households in India.
Reeling back now, the worst form of racism in India which is highly intolerable is the “chinky” racism.
“Not only Australia, India too is racist. I was being chased and verbally abused by a bunch of youngsters in a Delhi lane. They abused me because of my short stature and mongoloid features. After the incident, I stopped coming out alone at night during my three-year stay in the city.” Gyati Talo, a 32-year-old teacher and blogger from Arunachal Pradesh, who did his graduation from a reputed college of New Delhi, told IANS.
Many youngsters from different north eastern states who travel to different parts of India face the same situation. Mizoram chief minister Pu Lalthanhawla says that he has gone through the same levels of embarrassment and he has boldly proclaimed that he is a victim of racism in India in an international summit on water in Indonesia.

I am not against racial taunts, yet the physical assault, discrimination and nepotism based on the races are not to be tolerated.

The Language

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“All you need is a pair of ears and a place to sit”

It is something that actually stalls the beats in the hearts rising above the languages. If all the humans had sometime to appreciate the beauty and unity in it, then it is at this time that the Tower of Babel is completed. The rhythm and the melody must be able to evoke the emotion and the feelings rather than the lyrics though many times the lyrics are so good that they add a gem in the crown. Rhythm and melody are like the two essential sides of the same coin: rhythm holds the noetic side while melody the aesthetic aspect. Well, delineating rhythm and melody is more like trying to understand the English grammar: Subject, Object and Predicate. The cause of rhythm is from within us and the effect of melody is the result within us. To be clear on the difference, rhythms is what keep us moving and melody is the ethereal outcome of the translation of our feelings i.e., that of our senses in to external vibrations.

Music is the pleasure of the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting. - Gottfried Leibniz
All through the ages, there have been different great people who were impeccable composers or atleast musical geniuses, from the likes of the “Four seasons” Vivaldi to the “Jai-Ho” Rahman. Music has undergone extensive metamorphoses through these different ages. From MJ’s Bad, Diana Haddad’s Ammaneh, Cheb Khaled’s Aisha, Cheb Mami’s desert rose, Paul Allen’s To bring you back, the Chinese bamboo flutes, Tarkan’s Kiss Kiss to ARR’s Jai Ho .Still, it is really amazing to find each genre of music survive in its purest form or at least in the next of its kin. Well people take different stands on the coming of the Fusion music: To accept fusion as a genre itself?
Let’s leave it to the peers.
Its only the Indian classical music that delineates every minute change in the sounds and labels each one of them uniquely in its own way. The amazing power of music is felt throughout the different parts of India in the form of the classical Carnatic and Hindustani, different folk musics like Bhangra, Qawwali, Dandiya etc., apart from the famous bollywood music. : It’s the usual “Unity in Diversity” tag line serving here again: a safer way of addressing groups of egocentric people sticking together. Well a better tag line can be “Quality in Variety” though it sounds more like the Ad in the roadside Parota shop ( Kaapi, tea-bun ready!).
On the track, the beauty of the classical music was recognized and appreciated in the sub-continent from a very long time. It is still the case but the appreciative coterie is facing a trend inversely related to the population in the region.
I am equally affected, captivated and spell bound by the beauty of Hindustani music as I am by the beauty of the Carnatic music, only that I never got a chance to even learn the former form. It is like choosing a path to a one way travel of no return (at least for me) when there are two but different equally beautiful paths.
Some of the greatest soulful renderings for carnatic music come from the famous trinity: Thyagaraja, Shyama Shashtri and Dikshitar. I have had arguments and I don’t approve some people who think music is just a means to woo the opposite sex. Well, these three composers and many others like Swati Tirunaal, Papanasam Sivam, Sadashiva Brahmendra etc stand as an all-out answer for the antagonists. All their compositions have been towards the God. I do not want to mix god with music here.
The devotion and faith of Thyagaraja to his god apart, his musical compositions are worthy of ablution. All his compositions were focused on just a single idea and his emotions: joy, anger, faith, praise, devotion, subservience etc were all towards this single idea. The five gems, Pancharatna Krithis, sung even today in his honor are to be treasured and worshipped as the music of the soul or rather the soul of the music. The rhythm, melody and the harmony of his compositions have lured me into understanding the meanings of his songs. That is when I realized the beauty and power of music. The Krithi, Entharo Mahanubhavulu in Sri ragam just melts and captivates the heart of even the first time listeners and the recent fusion by OS Arun is a classical blend (Explosions).

With the sporadic expansion of filmy music, the importance of the basic classical music is undermined although; all the music is based on the seven swaras and the 72 melakarthas. Limiting myself to the sub-continental music and narrowing down to the Tamil filmy music, the legend Ilayaraja has given amazingly large number of filmy music with a strong classical base. “Kanmani nee vara kaathurundhen” is an excellent composition from the movie Thendralae ennai thodu. It is based on Malayamarutham. The classical Revathi comes in to play in the song “ Sangeetha jathi Mullai” while the full beauty of the raga is felt in the song “Manthira Punnagai” from the condition famous Manal Kayiru( This was composed by MSV). As the raga Kaapi is to ARR, Keeravaani is to Ilayaraja…. The kiravaani list is too big and I can just quote a few of his bests from the top of my head: Kaatril endhan geetham, Padi parandha Kili, Nenjukkulle innar endru, China china vanna kuyil, Malayoram veesum Kaatru etc., Some of the famous Sindhu Bhairavis are naan oru sindhu, Oru nallum from ejamaan, nillavu parthu from kannukkul nilavu,Keladi kanmani from pudhu pudhu arthangal.
Although ARR has used a lot of ragas in his music, his fusion of carnatic with Hindustani and especially with the Sufi music gives his music an altogether drift from the classical carnatic music. The most commonly used ragas by ARR according to me are Kaapi ( Kadhal rojave, En mel vizhunda from May madham, Ghanana ghanana,Pachai Kiligal etc ), Anandhabhairavi ( Mettu podu, theemthanana and thaniye thannan thaniye etc).
Although my knowledge of Hindustani is sparse, yet my best guesses about rags in hindi filmy music come from the likes between the different commons ragas found in the two.The most commonly used ragas in the hindi filmy music are the Pahadi, Shivranjani, Malkauns, Kirwani, etc., The recent Jai Ho is based on Bhairav and dance pe chance in RNBDJ is based on Bhairav too. The notes are pretty much explicit in this song. The enchanting Guzarish is in Megh Malhar which is equivalent to Madhyamavati in Carnatic and beautifully sung by Javed Ali. An amazing composition comes in the form of “Manmohini morey man bhave”. ARR once again proves that he could do immense justice to a classical based composition. It is Abheri and Bhimplas for Hindustani audience. And here Vijay Prakash just lives the song.
What hurts is that all these contemporary stalwarts exploit the basic classical music in their compositions to mint millions and yet they do very little to promote the same. The common man cannot even know what a raga is and what is it composed of without learning classical music and not everyone has the time and the facility to learn the same. The best these composers can do is to at least enlighten the masses about ragas through filmy music. An average joe is not able to relate himself to the same tune composed 300 hundred years ago while he is able to appreciate the same tune with a different label, which is true. Well, time dilation is still a factor but without the basic understanding and recognition of the beauty of the classical music, it is difficult even for the filmy music to survive. I have known instances where my friends who have the ability to sing melodies and steamy numbers in their really mellifluous versatile voices failed to pass through even the budding music directors; the reason being their lack of knowledge of the classical music. Not everyone is the legend SPB.

Preserving the classical music is protecting nature in its true form.

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